Apart from the fact that the NetAlert packages were quite easy to get around, it turned out that nobody actually very much wanted them.

The Government predicted that 2.5 million households, about 31% of the whole country, would want their free copy of one or another of the packages (which they'd paid for with their taxes already, of course).

As it turns out, they got a grand total of 144,088 CD orders and downloads.

The total price of the software filter scheme was 85 million Australian dollars. That's about $US78 million, at current exchange rates.

So this software ended up costing the taxpayer about $AU2930 ($US2685) per installed unit.

A copy of Net Nanny will cost you $US27 from Amazon. That's almost exactly one per cent of the effective price of the "free" software.

All that, to stop red-blooded Aussie kids from seeing boobies and doodles.

But have no fear - the new Federal government is much more sensible! They enthusiastically explain that their own very expensive scheme to implement "mandatory ISP-based filtering to deliver a filtered feed to all homes, schools and public internet points" will work far better. You know, just as it has in the other countries that've implemented secret Internet blacklists which, in effect, accuse lots of random innocent people of being child pornographers.

Never mind that, despite more than $15 million worth of advertising (including a booklet sent to every household in the country), it is now demonstrable that approximately three-fifths of bugger-all Australians have any interest in filtering their own Internet connection.

No, never mind that. We must be protected from filthy filthy porn, whether we want to be or not!

I heard about this a while ago and I still feel compelled to bitch and moan at a politician about it. Unfortunately the Australia branch of the EFF does a pretty terrible job of getting the general public to do anything. Where our Canadian style protests and information on how to yell at the government? Their site simply has a press release saying they don't like it.

Oooo! Don't get me started on that Elvis fellow! His hips are the devils work I tell ya! His dancing makes me feel things that are just not appropriate good moral christian feelings! And those british hippies - what are they called again? The bugs or something? Ooo they all oughtta be locked away! ;)